Seanad debates
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Finance (No. 2) Bill 2011 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages
We are not discussing proprietary director schemes in the main as they will not be hit as hard because of the approved retirement funds, ARFs, exemption inserted by the Government in the legislation. The longer a person has been in a scheme, the more he or she will pay. A person in a defined benefit scheme, with two or three years to go before retirement, may have an expectation that on retirement he or she would get two thirds of his or her final salary as an annuity for the rest of his or her days, which would be a good scheme, but now the scheme trustees will have to pay this levy. More than 70% of defined benefit schemes are underfunded. If a company is short of money, which many are, it might decide to reduce retirement benefits for its members, with the agreement of the scheme trustees, from two thirds to 50% of final salary or from 50% to 30% of final salary. That would have a grave impact on people who have an expectation of receiving in the short term a pension into which they have paid contributions for a substantial period of time.
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